{"id":374623,"date":"2025-11-12T23:30:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T23:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374623\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T23:30:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T23:30:17","slug":"astros-budget-crunch-looms-as-mlb-offseason-starts-to-heat-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374623\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros’ budget crunch looms as MLB offseason starts to heat up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astros’ budget crunch looms as MLB offseason starts to heat up<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Houston Astros<\/a> come into the offseason looking to add some arms. They could use a starting pitcher or two, with Framber Valdez likely headed elsewhere in free agency.<\/p>\n

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However, their tight budget will largely be at play over the winter. In 2026, they will have to pay a little under $160 million to just seven players.<\/p>\n

That does not leave a lot of room to sign a big-time free agent, which will not bode well for the fan base after a disastrous 2025 season. This was the first time they were not a part of the postseason since the 2016 season.<\/p>\n

Astros’ budget crunch looms as MLB offseason starts to heat up<\/p>\n

We are starting to get into the thick of things in the offseason. There have already been a few moves, and with the Winter Meetings coming up, a lot more moves are expected to be made.<\/p>\n

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Houston could be the odd man out here. Bleacher Report’s Kerry Miller<\/a> questions how they will navigate the offseason.<\/p>\n

“If they fill out the rest of the 26-man roster with pre-arbitration players at $820k a pop, that brings them close to $228M\u2014which is what their average Opening Day payroll has been over the past two seasons. Can Houston realistically be expected to bring in a marquee free agent this winter?”<\/p>\n

Without bringing in a marquee free agent, it may be another missed postseason for the Astros. It would be tough for the front office to feel good about a starting rotation consisting of Hunter Brown and the often-injured Cristian Javier and Lance McCullers Jr.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see how Houston navigates the winter months. The front office certainly has its work cut out for it in trying to put together a better product for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

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More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astros’ budget crunch looms as MLB offseason starts to heat up originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":374624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[83229,11315,31301,2382,2621,53893,1266,62,180354,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-374623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-cristian-javier","9":"tag-framber-valdez","10":"tag-free-agent","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-hunter-brown","13":"tag-lance-mccullers-jr","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tight-budget","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115539333900193775","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}